Natural Halloysite-Templated Synthesis of Highly Graphitic Boron-Doped Hollow Carbon Nanocapsule Webs

Hollow carbon nanocapsules have been attracting growing interest due to their fascinating characteristics and extensive potential applications. In this work, a novel natural halloysite-templated synthesis approach for highly graphitic boron-doped hollow carbon nanocapsule webs (B-HCNCWs) using glucose as the carbon source and boric acid as the heteroatom dopant was first reported. The formation process and physicochemical properties of B-HCNCWs were revealed by SEM, TEM, XRD, Raman, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), and XPS characterization techniques. The outcomes showed that the as-obtained B-HCNCWs with hollow nanocapsule network architecture had a specific surface area of 263 m2 g−1, a pore volume of 0.8 cm3 g−1, a high degree of graphitization (81.4%), graphite-like interplanar spacing (0.3370 nm), and B-containing functional groups (0.77 at%). The density function theory (DFT) calculation demonstrated that the adsorption energies of Li on B-HCNCWs were much higher than that of HCNCWs, which proved that B-doping in a carbon matrix could increase the lithium intercalation capacity.